Many grasses and other plants have been successfully propagated using vegetative planting techniques associated with applying live plant material to an appropriately prepared area of land or top soil. Examples of such vegetative techniques include planting grass on prepared land by laying solid slabs of sod on the land, spotting with sod plugs or spraying a water based slurry with grass sprigs (stolons, rhizomes or both) over the prepared land. This last vegetative planting technique may sometimes be referred as hydro-sprigging.
Hydro-sprigging processes typically include harvesting grass sprigs from existing turf with a special digging device or vertical cutting machine. The resulting grass sprigs are generally, but not always completely, free of any soil. The sprigs are typically mixed in a tank with water along with mulch material, fertilizer, wetting agent and/or slicking agent as desired. The equipment associated with hydro-sprigging typically includes a mixing tank having an agitator system such as a paddle with multiple blades attached to a motor for stirring the water based slurry and a pump capable of pumping the resulting slurry of water, grass sprigs, mulch and other material. The mulch material and slicking agent help to prevent clogging of the slurry within the pump and associated tubing and hoses. The mulch material also protects the sprigs once the water based slurry has been sprayed on a prepared area of land.
Examples of equipment and methods associated with propagating grasses and other plants using a sprayable slurry are described in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.:
3,091,436 Method for Producing a Sprayable Fibre Mulch PA0 3,717,285 Apparatus for Spraying a Slurry PA0 4,219,966 Method of Rapid Grass Growth PA0 4,705,217 Material Mixing and Spraying Apparatus PA0 5,012,974 Method and Apparatus for Applying Pregerminated Plantlets PA0 5,361,711 Apparatus for Seeding, Mulching, and Fertilizing Soil
The above listed patents are incorporated by reference for all purposes within this application.